


Long Night in the Castle of Lions

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [214]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Insomnia, M/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 08:11:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17240639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: Keith can't sleep. Shiro notices.





	Long Night in the Castle of Lions

Sometimes, the nights in the castle are long. Long and filled with a sort of infinite quiet, the sound of universe at rest that presses in from all sides. No noise from inside the ship can compete with it, that silence, not Lance’s snores or the singsong Hunk uses to talk himself into sleep: _It’s ok. It’s all right. Everything is gonna be fine_.

It isn’t. Keith’s pretty sure of that. Lions or legendary whatever notwithstanding, it feels like they’re pretty much screwed.

Galactic evil? Weapons that can blow away worlds? What kind of chance do they have against any of that?

Not good. Not fucking good.

He can hide those thoughts during the day, when they’re out and about saving the innocent and protecting what’s good, what seems right. But at night, when he has only the shadows and his own head for company, those thoughts drown him out, pull him knee deep into despair.

He doesn’t sleep much in the castle. He envies everybody who can: Pidge, who can curl into any corner and be asleep in ten ticks. Allura and Coran, who slept here for 10,000 years, for gods’ sake. And Shiro, their great and glorious leader, who strolls into the lounge for breakfast every morning looking like he’s just had a strong, solid eight.

“Good morning,” he’ll say to each of them, a smile and a pat on the shoulder for each. “How’d you sleep?”

Keith doesn’t bother to lie anymore, to put on an act of at ease and well-rested.

“Like shit, Shiro,” he’ll say, not bothering to raise his head from the purple stuff that passes for coffee. “Like absolute shit.”

The first time he’d said it, Shiro had startled, his hold on Keith’s shoulder going sudden and tight.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Didn’t get a wink.”

“Well,” Shiro had stumbled, “you, ah--did you try meditation?”

“Didn’t bother.” He’d looked up, looked back to see Shiro’s face drawn up and worried. “I never sleep a lot anyway. Even on Earth. I’m fine.”

Shiro hadn’t bought it then, didn’t buy it now, but Keith’s stuck to it, this little shade of untruth. No, he’s never taken refuge in sleep like some people but he’s never found it so elusive before, so willing to slip out of his grasp. After a while, he even finds himself missing his nightmares: the ones about crashing, the ones about falling, the ones about his mom’s voice. They feel like old friends, those dreams, that he’s no longer allowed to see.

And he’s tired. Dear gods, he’s exhausted. But even the softest Altean pillow and the pressure of darkness can’t kick him over to sleep, not the kind he needs, the kind that lets him sink into the bed and lasts for more than 20 minutes. That sort of sleep, it feels like, is long fucking gone.

 

*****

 

One night, or what passes for it in space, there’s a knock on his door.

That’s how he knows it isn’t Coran or Allura; they’d have gone straight for the chime. It’s not Hunk, either, because he favors _shave and a haircut_ , and it’s not Lance because he’s a dick and would’ve pounded with both fists. And shouted. He’d definitely have shouted.

Pidge or Shiro, then.

And unless Pidge’s shot up a foot in the last few hours, the tapping is too tall for him. So.

“It’s alright, Shiro,” he calls, waving on the small bunkside lamp. “You can come in.”

The door slides open and Shiro steps in, frowning. “How’d you know it was me?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Right.”

It takes Keith a second to realize that Shiro looks weird. Well, not weird, but a lot less formal than usual; less like a Garrison Leader and more like a person. A person who’s wearing--

“Are those _pajamas_?”

Shiro looks down at himself, looks back up at Keith, bemused. “To the best of my knowledge, yes. They’re not a matched set, but since it’s what I tend to sleep in, I think calling them pajamas is fair.”

“Oh. Sure.”

“I mean, if anyone’s attire is cause for comment, I think it’s yours. Aren’t those the clothes you wore today? And yesterday? And the day before that?”

“I put them through the ‘fresher every morning,” Keith says, defensive. “It’s not like I’m wandering around unwashed or something.”

“No, it’s”--Shiro holds his hands up, a little sign of surrender--“I wasn’t suggesting you were. Do you...is this what you wear every night?”

Keith bristles. “Yes. So?”

“So, maybe you’d have an easier time sleeping if you, you know, let yourself relax.”

“I _am_ relaxed!”

Shiro’s mouth curves. “Yeah, obviously. Look at you. You’re the picture of rest and relaxation, Keith.”

Gods, what is it with this guy? “What are you doing here?”

“I’m worried about you.”

“Ugh.” Keith folds his arms across his chest, summons his best scowl. “You don’t need to be.”

“You haven’t slept in weeks. And that’s according to you. You don’t see a cause for concern?”

“I told you. I’m fine.”

Shiro steps towards the bunk, the lamp catching his face, the dark light of his eyes. “And I’m here as your friend to tell you you’re not. What happened with you and the Green Lion today?”

There’s a rush of heat in his face. “We--I lost track of it for a minute, that’s all.”

“And nearly crashed into its side. You could’ve been hurt. So could Pidge, along with both of your lions.”

“But I didn’t. Everything turned out fine. We got home in one piece, didn’t we?”

Shiro’s voice is terribly gentle. “Keith.”

“What?”

“That was just today. Last week, you almost went headfirst into that asteroid. And right before that, you--”

“Gods, shut up!” Keith says. There are tears in his eyes, _tears_ , in front of freaking Shiro. It’s fucking horrific. “You don’t have to--I know I’ve screwed up, ok? I know each and every time I’ve made a mistake.”

“Keith--”

“I know I’m a fuck-up, alright? I know that, I know, you don’t have to come in here in the middle of the fucking night to remind me!”

“Hey,” Shiro says, a shot of steel in his voice, “no way. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Really? Really? Right. Sure, Shiro.”

“Damn it, don’t--!”

He shoves the tears from his cheeks and flies up, ready to punch Shiro if he has to, shove him out into the corridor, anything to make him go away. “Stop talking!” he barks. “Just shut up and get out of here!”

“No!” Shiro shouts, getting right in his face. “I’ve tried not talking to you about this, and you know what, that didn’t work! You’re still dead on your feet all the time, you still look sick, you still feel like you’re worthless and you think that you’re holding us back but you’re not, Keith! You’re not!”

Keith bares his teeth, balls his fists. “How the fuck do you know how I feel, huh?”

“How do I--?” Shiro looks furious. “What part of _there are no secrets between paladins_ did you not understand?”

“What?”

“The mind-link,” Shiro says through gritted teeth. “When we’re Voltron. Do you not grok how it works?”

Keith snarls, tries to take a step back, but Shiro has him by the elbows like a vise. “You’ve been digging around in my head, then? That’s great. That’s real fucking leader-ly of you.”

“I’m not--I’m not digging around in your head! You’re broadcasting those feelings like they’re on a freaking repeater!”

“No, I’m not.”

“You _are_.” Shiro’s eyes are angry, his grip unrelenting. “Gods, don’t you see? The more tired you get, the louder your thoughts are. Your brain doesn’t have the energy to hold them back.”

There’s a sink of fear in Keith’s gut. He’s afraid it shows in his face; raises his voice just in case. “Well,” he spits, “that doesn’t mean you have to listen!”

“You’re impossible!” Shiro says through clentched teeth. “Honestly, gods, Keith, you’re the most--!”

There are a lot of things that rattle around in Keith’s head on those long nights in the Castle of Lions. Some nights, he can’t crawl out of sadness, can’t shake himself free of worry and doubt. Some nights, there’s fear: the shriek of Zarkon’s fighters; the screams of dying planets; the way the Red Lion trembles when he’s wounded.

But on some nights, when the silence is at its most still, Keith thinks about Shiro. Not the man who strides about with so much certainty, the man who never loses his cool, the man whose resolution, whose steadiness has held their shaky team together time and strange time again.

No, he thinks about the man he’d seen on the table on Earth, the man whose shackles he’d broken, the man who he’d half-carried, half-dragged into the open air, to the speeder, to safety. He remembers the weight of Shiro’s head on his shoulder and the stutter of his breath, the way he’d clung to Keith without reservation or shame, the soft grateful sounds he’d made against Keith’s neck as they staggered towards safety and away from chains and from fear:

_Thank you,_ he’d murmured, his voice like a bruise. _Whoever you are. Thank you._

And those thoughts slip sometimes into a dream, an imagined hour in his bed with Shiro bent over him, kissing him, petting at his skin until he cries out and making those same grateful sounds as he pushes into Keith’s body, fills him until there’s no room for thinking, no room for worry, no worry for something like doubt.

_Keith_ , this dream-Shiro will murmur, his voice like a bruise. _Thank you. Thank you_.

On those longest of nights, the sweetest, he’ll take himself in hand and forget to muffle his cries. He’ll imagine the shape of Shiro’s mouth, the taste of its weight upon his, and stroke himself as Shiro would, slow and steady, each touch perfect and measured until it’s not, until they can’t be, until they’re fucking in earnest and all words are gone and there is, in the whole goddamn universe, only the two of them left, spend supernovas panting against each other’s hot skin.

And then, with the dream pulled about him, he’ll sleep, fall into a soft solid hour of respite but then awake feeling guilty, so fucking guilty, his flesh crawling in shame, and his eyes never close again after that.

Has he put that out into the mind-link? Those feelings, that momentary delusion. Does Shiro know about all of that, too?

“Fuck,” he says, frantic, twisting in Shiro’s arms, “do you ever shut up?”

“I don’t know. Do you ever listen?”

His heart is on fire, his whole body filled with panic. “Huh,” he spits, “maybe if you said something worth hearing.”

Shiro opens his mouth--to scold, to fuss, to shout, maybe all of the above--but in the same instant, their bodies collide, Keith’s thrashing crashing their hips together in a sweet sudden collision and oh, Keith thinks wild, disbelieving, oh gods, because Shiro is hard, stiff behind the soft turn of his sleep pants and he’s breathing startled into Keith’s face and not running away and this is a terrible idea, this isn’t even a thought, this is the best thing that Keith’s done all day:

He turns his face and jams his mouth against Shiro’s, less a kiss than a battering ram. It’s awkward and sideways and rushed and yet it makes Shiro moan, makes his hands fly up to cup Keith’s face and steady him, steady them, turn the awkward into something perfect and deep.

He tastes like Altean toothpaste, does Shiro, a dark, bitter berry. His tongue is demanding and his body unyielding and his fingers are cold, metal and skin both, and with all this, with just a kiss, he makes Keith see fucking stars.

“I didn’t come here for this,” Shiro whispers when they part, when their lips drift just enough to let words fly. “I mean, I’d be lying if I said I’d never thought about, um...but honestly, I came to see if you were all right.”

Keith slips his hand under the hem of Shiro’s t-shirt, lays his palm over cool, shivering skin. “Mmm, I know. But does that mean you want to stop?”

Shiro makes a tiny, pained sound, his cock twitching against Keith’s hip. “Stop? No. No no. Unless you--unless you want to.”

“No,” Keith says, biting gently at Shiro’s lip, his own curled up in a smile. “Definitely not.”

 

*****

 

In the morning, he’s slumped over his weird not-coffee when he feels a hand on his shoulder, a roughened voice saying: “Keith? How’d you sleep?”

He tips his head back and smiles. “Like a baby, actually. Once I got around to it. How about you?"

Shiro’s eyes are warm, his mouth still flushed. “About the same, actually.”

“Really? Huh. That’s funny.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Shiro touches the bruise he left on Keith’s neck, the only one the collar of his jacket can’t hide, and gives up a tired grin. “What a coincidence.”

The whole team is looking at them, aren’t they, and Lance is howling something tinged with disbelief but it’s fine, Keith isn’t worried about it; he’s not worried about a damn thing. For the moment, it’s the castle that’s bustling, brimming over with noise and ideas and life, while Keith’s head is quiet and settled, the joy of the night before pressing in on all sides.

“Good morning,” Shiro says, giving him one last squeeze, another lazy shot of a smile.

“Yeah,” Keith says to himself, to his last sip of coffee, to the goggled eyes of his teammates. “It is.”


End file.
